Systems Across Domains
Why cross-domain systems understanding matters, and a library of system-domain notes.
What It Is
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive cloud computing platform offering infrastructure and services. On this site, it is part of the practical toolset behind building systems that are easier to understand, operate, and repeat.
Learn more: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/
In My Own Words
Most engagements start because a client needs someone who already knows AWS. What keeps them going is judgment about which AWS services not to use.
Transcript
My name is Michael Orlando and I help people build products with technology. It is common that people will find me because I know a specific technology. I work a lot with cloud technologies — I work a lot with Amazon Web Services. Any kind of service that AWS offers, I usually know how to use it, or can figure out how to use it very quickly, because many of them integrate together. That’s usually where the engagement starts.
However, that’s not the full engagement. Knowing how these systems work with other systems, and also which tools and sub-products should be chosen and not used — that’s a big part of it. I can steer clients away from technology that looks like it might work but won’t actually work for their application. Sometimes it’s very hard to tell. I hope that I can reuse my wasted time trying things for other clients on you, so that you don’t have to waste your time and money figuring out why a solution won’t work. Instead, I can skip some and we can investigate one that might actually work.
IT systems
Enterprise infrastructure manages identity, communication, storage, and security to ensure controlled access, reliability, and operational continuity.
Linux systems
A hierarchical, permissioned operating system manages processes, memory, and files through a kernel that enforces resource isolation, scheduling, and hardware abstraction.
Open source ecosystems
Decentralized software production is governed by licenses, contribution models, and maintainers, with reputation and utility coordinating distributed contributors around shared codebases.
Full-stack application systems
Integrated applications combine frontend interfaces, backend logic, databases, and APIs into cohesive systems.
Platform ecosystems
Extensible systems enable third parties to build on top of core infrastructure through APIs, standards, and governance.
Software development systems
Processes and tools build software through version control, testing, modular design, and iterative deployment to maintain reliability and evolvability.
AWS/cloud systems
On-demand, API-driven infrastructure is composed from modular services with explicit cost models, enabling scalable architectures through composition, isolation, and elasticity.
Cloud Architecture and Infrastructure
Projects designing, migrating, and operating cloud-native infrastructure on AWS and related platforms.
Distributed systems
Multiple coordinated nodes operate under partial failure, requiring replication, coordination, and fault tolerance to deliver reliable global behavior.